I think the snake oil is all in Microsoft and Nvidia boardrooms.
As I troubleshoot this latest pile of fun from Nvidia that has driven my system into the toilet, I just discovered yet another factor - Nvidia’s control panel is now delivered automatically through Microsoft’s store and I now have a version mismatch with two control panels. It’s frigging unreal what they have done.
I just ran DDU on 457.30 and now magically have Nvidia driver 456.71 installed again - but I didn’t install it. It’s not even in my download folder. This is the same version I saw before after running DDU earlier today. I thought it was left over from when I rebuilt my system before but it’s not. I never installed it. Microsoft is installing it automatically.
Just search the Microsoft store for “Nvidia”. The control panel is the first hit for me. Now when DDU runs it seems to remove something but I keep ending up with 456.71. If I install 457.30, it works for a while and then I get a notice about control panel not having support for 457.30. I uninstall Nvidia drivers and if the system has network when I reboot out of safe mode, Microsoft reinstalls 456.71 without asking.
And it’s in the DDU readme - no network when doing this stuff.